A June 2025 survey by the Social Research Foundation put the following question to respondents: “Imagine you are the coach of a sport team. Do you think you should take race into account when choosing members of your team, or do you think they should only be chosen on merit, experience, and skill? Which one of the following comes closest to your view?”

Participants could then choose from one of four options.

The first was: “Race is critical and I would make sure the team was racially representative and diverse as my first priority.”

The second was: “Race is important but I would only consider it if there were two players I felt were equal on merit; then race would be the deciding factor.”

The third was “Racial representivity is important but not more important than merit, so, if the team has a programme to attract talent from across the racial spectrum in the future, I would stick to merit and be patient.”

The fourth was: “Race would not play any part in my selection. I would focus strictly on merit and not entertain any other criteria.”

Amongst all South Africans 18.3% chose options one or two, in which race plays a role in selection whilst 81.3% chose options three or four in which race was not an important factor.

Across lines of race, income, education, home language, residential area, age, and gender there was similarly widespread support for the importance of merit over race in deciding sports teams’ players.